A/N and Disclaimer: So this is my first try at this, in a language that is not my mothertongue, and obviously this is a fanfiction where nothing much happens x). Sorry? Constructive reviews are loved :D Of course, seeing how this is a fanfiction, none of these characters or the universe they belong in are mine.
It all starts with something mundane, something vastly ordinary, plain and dull – The kind of thing she used to marvel at before, when she still had to end the world and took in as much as she could before she was all out of time she had borrowed from an existence that wasn't hers. It all starts with coffee. Or one of these books with a worn out cover. Or the shape of a Pyramid field drawing itself in the distance. There are the things, and then there are the smell, the shapes, the feelings – So many feelings she is told she should not have. She is also told they need war heroes, and that she is just as good as any – But she does not want to enjoy this, should not enjoy this. If she enjoys it too much, it might break the illusion she still fits into the norms they've set into her programming.
So she is having coffee, and there is an Eight in front of her chatting about things that are neither plain, nor dull, nor ordinary. She talks about people with names but no faces, people like Starbuck, Cally, and Crashdown, and the Captain Adama – People Six will never meet. Sometimes Eight gets lost, and this is how Six knows she had someone, too. Six never dared to ask who. She knows it'd hurt too much. She had someone too, once, and Eight is as close to him as she will physically get. She is not counting her charming hallucination, of course, because as very real and very undeniable as it is, Six knows he is not quite true, not quite there. And that is all right. Six can agree with and believe in things that are neither true nor there. Her very existence is proof of this.
And so once she sees the book, or smell the coffee, or catch a glimpse of a Pyramid field, Six is not listening to Eight anymore. She is miles away, drinking that coffee with someone else, seeing the book in someone else's hands, watching a Pyramid game with a spare seat in the sweet but non-existent possibility that he might one day join her. Six goes away to a time when she'd still been fascinated by the bitter taste of coffee, the writings of minds so simple and yet so complex, and sports, and him – Gaius, always Gaius. Eight is the only reason she knows he is alive.
Eight does not want to be called Eight. She does not want to be called Sharon, either. She told her once, in private, to call her Boomer. Six had given her a quizzical look but hadn't dared to ask the question she already knew the answer of. Boomer wasn't Eight. Boomer was an individual with feelings, hopes and wants and a family and friends – And people like Starbuck, or the Captain Adama, or Crashdown or Cally or the Chief to call home, and safe, and happiness. They had promised each other they would improve Cylon/Humans relation, that they would create a better world. For Eight, it started by being Boomer. Six understood that. She called her Eight anyway – Because Eight was her Cylon sister, it was safe and it felt enough like home and it was someone she could relate to because no matter how hard she tried to play it inside her head, Six had always been Six. The stories she had to tell would always be tainted by the fact that she had always been Six and the only person she would have called home, and family, and safe was Gaius, and she was not naïve enough to believe he would do the same thing about her – Not before the apocalypse, and certainly not after discovering she was a cold, heartless machine. She did not feel cold and heartless – In fact, Six felt quite the opposite, and she felt confused, and talking with Eight did not confuse her any less but at the very least it put things into perspective – but she was undeniably machine, she was undeniably a lie. And when she wanted to tell Eight about Gaius – About how he laughed, and kissed, and was a very coward man, and how he believed himself to be cleverer than her even while trying to flatter her, and how when he held her waist as they took long walks it did not feel so much like a lie. She never does. Six is not quite sure if she wants to tell all of this to Eight or to Boomer, or if any of this matter at all.
Six is not quite sure she wants to be Six, but she does not want to be Caprica – But at least, the nickname means she will never forget.
And it all starts with something mundane, like coffee, and perhaps she has not yet stopped being fascinated by the world. She silently wonders if this was one of the things he liked about her, and if he still does.